The Supreme Court will soon decide two cases that could further limit employers’ rights in their dealings with employee unions. Read the New York Times article here.

The first case will decide whether employers have the right to agree to remain neutral during a union organizing drive. (Shouldn’t employers be able to allow their employees to make their own decisions about union representation? In many worksites, unions and employers work cooperatively because they share the same goals. Why should federal law require the employer-union relationship to be adversarial, rather than cooperative?)

The second case attempts to impose “Right to Work” on the whole country through a court decision — rather than leaving it up to each state to decide for itself whether to limit employers’ rights. (What happened to that old Tenth Amendment/states’ rights principle?)

The second case also challenges whether a state government has the right to allow union representation of home-care workers who are paid by Medicaid. (Again: are we about to see the federal court system restrict a state government’s exercise of reserved powers?)

And then there’s Boeing. Just my personal opinion, but… it sure seems to me like Boeing is setting up another chance to litigate all those legal theories it came up with in 2011, back before the Machinists asked the NLRB to drop its complaint about Dreamliner production. The basic question at issue: whether a company has the right to relocate jobs in retaliation for (legally protected) union activity. That 2011 complaint was part of “a very long line of cases that the NLRB has been pressing since the 1940s, when employers began moving work from unionized workplaces in the industrial Northeast to non-unionized workplaces in the Southeast and later the Southwest.” Just think what the impact on unions could be, if Boeing persuades the courts to agree with its legal theories. (Read more NHLN coverage of Boeing here.)

Why am I so concerned about these Court cases (and potential court cases) ? Well… because the Supreme Court is now headed up by Bush appointee John Roberts. Back in 2005, he was described as one of the “three possible nominees that big business would cheer” — in part because they thought Roberts might “influence the court to decide more cases deemed critical to business.” Quoting one observer of that nomination process: “Roberts has spent his career as a mind-for-hire on behalf of the rightwing Republican agenda.” Quoting another: “if Roberts feels free to overturn precedent… Of particular concern is a return to the Lochner era, a time when free-market capitalists read their ideology into the Constitution by striking down statutes aimed at protecting workers’ health and safety.”

I guess we’re about to find out whether those observers were as accurate in their predictions as President Harry Truman was, in his.

He filed the bill on Friday, November 21, 2003 – almost exactly 40 years after the death of President John F. Kennedy.

A coincidence? Not likely. Here’s the back story:

The Employee Free Choice Act would restore union organizing rights that were taken away by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. John F. Kennedy was a member of the Congress that passed Taft-Hartley.

“The first thing I did in Congress was to become the junior Democrat on the labor committee. At the time we were considering the Taft-Hartley Bill. I was against it, and one day in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I debated the bill with a junior Republican on that committee who was for it . . . his name was Richard Nixon.” [from a 1960 recording of President Kennedy reflecting on his career]

Both Kennedy and Nixon believed that Nixon won that debate. And just weeks later, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, overriding a veto by President Harry Truman.

President Truman was eerily accurate in his predictions of what the Taft-Hartley Act would do.

“The Taft-Hartley bill is a shocking piece of legislation. It is unfair to the working people of this country. It clearly abuses the right, which millions of our citizens now enjoy, to join together and bargain with their employers for fair wages and fair working conditions. …”

“I fear that this type of legislation would cause the people of our country to divide into opposing groups. If conflict is created, as this bill would create it—if the seeds of discord are sown, as this bill would sow them—our unity will suffer and our strength will be impaired.”

“When one penetrates the complex, interwoven provisions of this omnibus bill, and understands the real meaning of its various parts, the result is startling. … the National Labor Relations Act would be converted from an instrument with the major purpose of protecting the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively into a maze of pitfalls and complex procedures. … The bill would deprive workers of vital protection which they now have under the law…. This bill is perhaps the most serious economic and social legislation of the past decade. Its effects–for good or ill–would be felt for decades to come.”

“At some point in my career… I could no longer tell workers that the [National Labor Relations] Act protects their right to form a union. … Over the years, the law has been perverted. It now acts as a sword which is used by employers to frustrate employee freedom of choice and deny them their right to collective bargaining. When workers want to form a union to bargain with their employer, the NLRB election process, which was originally established as their means to this end, now provides a virtually insurmountable series of practical, procedural, and legal obstacles.”

“Each year in the United States, more than 23,000 workers are fired or penalized for union activity. Aided by a weak labor law system that fails to protect workers’ rights, employers manipulate the current process of establishing union representation in a manner that undemocratically gives them the power to significantly influence the outcome of union representation elections. … Union membership in the United States is not declining because workers no longer want or need unions. Instead, falling union density is directly related to employers’ near universal and systematic use of legal and illegal tactics to stymie workers’ union organizing.”

“Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime … many of the employer tactics that create a punitive and coercive atmosphere are, in fact, legal. Unless serious labor law reform with real penalties is enacted, only a fraction of the workers who seek representation under the National Labor Relations Act will be successful. If recent trends continue, then there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain.”

Now, go back and consider President Truman’s most serious prediction from 66 years ago: that the Taft-Hartley Act “would cause the people of our country to divide into opposing groups. If conflict is created, as this bill would create it—if the seeds of discord are sown, as this bill would sow them—our unity will suffer and our strength will be impaired.”

Think about our national politics. Isn’t our country divided enough? Isn’t it time to reverse the process started by the Taft-Hartley Act?

It’s been a decade since Sen. Kennedy first filed the Employee Free Choice Act. Next week, we will mark a half-century since President John F. Kennedy died.

Isn’t it time to yank the roots of discord, start ending the conflict, and heal the division that was created by the Taft-Hartley Act?

————

To my long-time readers: apologies if this sounds familiar. Once again, I have just updated last year’s post to reflect the passage of time; there was no reason to write a new post, because things haven’t changed. So instead of trying to reword things I’ve already said, I’m just going to start using a new hashtag: #dejavu. (You can see all my repeats in one place!)

Actually, it’s not exactly true that “things haven’t changed.” In this case they are changing — they’re getting worse. But more on that, tomorrow.

Contract negotiations is a delicate art form. There is always a little pushing and pulling from both sides. Good negotiators can get what they want without giving up too much. When negotiating contracts both sides have a duty to openly and honestly bargain. We call this ‘bargaining in good faith’.

To bargain in good faith means that both sides will work to find common ground, and will abide by the terms agreed to in the negotiating process. The ability to trust the other side is key to the negotiating process. Sometimes, this trust is lost. When that happens, one side gets burned. In negotiating terms we call this ‘bad faith bargaining’. Bargaining in bad faith means that you never intended to follow through on the actions you agreed to in the negotiation process.

On June 28th the New Hampshire Public Employees Labor Relations Board (NH PELRB) issued a ruling that the Hillsboro-Deering School District did negotiate in ‘bad faith’.

“The School Board committed an unfair labor practice in violation of RSA 273-A:5, I (e) when it failed to vote on ratification of the tentative agreement and when its negotiating team member failed to support the agreementduringthe ratification meeting as required under the ground rules, the statute, andPELRBdecisions.”

Attorney Terri Donovan, Director of Collective Bargaining and Field Services for AFT-NH, explained importance of this decision.

“This decision is important because it clearly lays out in a comprehensive decision from the NHPELRB the elements of good faith bargaining and the responsibilities of negotiating teams. As we enter into negotiations for a successor agreement, it is the hope of the Union that the School Board will not only understand their obligations but negotiate in good faith going forward.”

As previously stated, negotiating is a delicate process of give and take. Without trust from both sides we would never be able to reach an agreement. Without an agreement, nobody is happy.

How many times have you seen this poster? This is the ‘Employee Rights’ poster that was mandated by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to be prominently displayed in over 6 million worksites. That was until a Circuit Court of Appeals Judge decided the ‘freedom of speech’ of the employer is more important than rights of workers.

The poster was created to inform the workers of their right to organize, and collectively bargain. A right that is guaranteed to millions of workers, however they do not know it. This poster was specifically designed to inform workers of all of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers have balked at this mandate since it was instituted because they do not want workers to know they have the right to collectively bargain with them. While some think that unions are bad, polling shows overwhelming support for collective bargaining. Employers do not want employees to organize and form unions because it is well known that union workers make more money than non-union workers. When employees make more money, business owners see a reduction in profits.

The other part of this poster that is extremely important is the fact that it is illegal for an employer to question you or take adverse actions against you for union activities. Companies violate this part of the NLRA over and over because many of the workers do not know their rights. I remember when I was 19, I got a summer job with the evil empire (Wal-Mart, before I knew how evil they were). In their basic orientation they forced me to watch a video that basically told me that unions were terrible, money grubbing, organizations that force you to pay due and then do nothing for you. You know, the complete opposite of what unions are all about. At the time, I was also taking a college class on Labor/Management relations. I asked, actually begged, for them to let me borrow the video to use for my class project. They immediately shut me down, and would never let me view the movie again. I think they knew they were skirting the NLRA anti-union regulations with their video and did not want anyone outside of Wal-Mart to see it.

Once again the corporations right to free speech beats out the workers rights to organize. Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO responded to this ruling in a written statement.

“In today’s workplace, employers are required to display posters explaining wage and hour rights, health and safety and discrimination laws, even emergency escape routes. The D.C. Circuit ruling suggests that courts should strike down hundreds of notice requirements, not only those that inform workers about their rights and warn them of hazards, but also those on cigarette packages, in home mortgages and many other areas. The Court’s twisted logic finds that “freedom of speech” precludes the government from requiring employers to provide certain information to employees. This is absurd: when workers know their rights, the laws work as intended.“

Here, here President Trumka, you nailed it. The goal of these posters, to inform the workers of their rights. The fact that they cannot be disciplined, fired, admonished, or any other adverse actions by their employer for activities in forming/joining a union. This is just another absurd ruling in favor of ‘corporate people’ over the actual people who work for these corporations. The good news is that President Obama plans to take this case to the Supreme Court if he needs to.

He filed the bill on Friday, November 21, 2003 – almost exactly 40 years after the death of President John F. Kennedy.

A coincidence? Not likely. Here’s the back story:

The Employee Free Choice Act would restore union organizing rights that had been effectively stripped by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. John F. Kennedy was a member of the Congress that passed Taft-Hartley.

“The first thing I did in Congress was to become the junior Democrat on the labor committee. At the time we were considering the Taft-Hartley Bill. I was against it, and one day in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I debated the bill with a junior Republican on that committee who was for it . . . his name was Richard Nixon.” [from a 1960 recording of President Kennedy reflecting on his career]

Both Kennedy and Nixon believed that Nixon won that debate. Weeks later, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, overriding a veto by President Harry Truman.

President Truman was eerily accurate in his predictions of what the Taft-Hartley Act would do.

“The Taft-Hartley bill is a shocking piece of legislation. It is unfair to the working people of this country. It clearly abuses the right, which millions of our citizens now enjoy, to join together and bargain with their employers for fair wages and fair working conditions. …”

“I fear that this type of legislation would cause the people of our country to divide into opposing groups. If conflict is created, as this bill would create it—if the seeds of discord are sown, as this bill would sow them—our unity will suffer and our strength will be impaired.”

“When one penetrates the complex, interwoven provisions of this omnibus bill, and understands the real meaning of its various parts, the result is startling. … the National Labor Relations Act would be converted from an instrument with the major purpose of protecting the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively into a maze of pitfalls and complex procedures. … The bill would deprive workers of vital protection which they now have under the law…. This bill is perhaps the most serious economic and social legislation of the past decade. Its effects–for good or ill–would be felt for decades to come.”

“At some point in my career… I could no longer tell workers that the [National Labor Relations] Act protects their right to form a union. … Over the years, the law has been perverted. It now acts as a sword which is used by employers to frustrate employee freedom of choice and deny them their right to collective bargaining. When workers want to form a union to bargain with their employer, the NLRB election process, which was originally established as their means to this end, now provides a virtually insurmountable series of practical, procedural, and legal obstacles.”

“Each year in the United States, more than 23,000 workers are fired or penalized for union activity. Aided by a weak labor law system that fails to protect workers’ rights, employers manipulate the current process of establishing union representation in a manner that undemocratically gives them the power to significantly influence the outcome of union representation elections. … Union membership in the United States is not declining because workers no longer want or need unions. Instead, falling union density is directly related to employers’ near universal and systematic use of legal and illegal tactics to stymie workers’ union organizing.”

“Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime … many of the employer tactics that create a punitive and coercive atmosphere are, in fact, legal. Unless serious labor law reform with real penalties is enacted, only a fraction of the workers who seek representation under the National Labor Relations Act will be successful. If recent trends continue, then there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain.”

Now, go back and consider President Truman’s most serious prediction from 65 years ago: that the Taft-Hartley Act “would cause the people of our country to divide into opposing groups. If conflict is created, as this bill would create it—if the seeds of discord are sown, as this bill would sow them—our unity will suffer and our strength will be impaired.”

Think about this past election. Isn’t our country divided enough? Isn’t it time to reverse the process started by the Taft-Hartley Act?

It’s been nine years since Sen. Kennedy first filed the Employee Free Choice Act.

A year from now, we will mark a half-century since President John F. Kennedy died.

Isn’t it time to yank the roots of discord, start ending the conflict, and heal the division that was created by the Taft-Hartley Act?

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